It speaks volumes about the state of the coaching industry that it is a mild surprise Mark Hudspeth is still at Louisiana-Lafayette.

Granted, he’s entering only his third season. But after back-to-back 9-4s and a couple bowl victories for a fan base both starved for tangible gridiron success and located in a part of the country that takes the sport so seriously, Hudspeth has at least helped improve his own profile as well as that of the Ragin’ Cajuns.

He can do even more this season, starting with a credible opportunity to knock off Arkansas in the opening week. Much of an effective offense (UL Lafayette topped 450 yards in six of its last seven games) is back, while half of an unremarkable defense also returns.

There’s a case to be made the Ragin’ Cajuns are the surest thing in the Sun Belt, although UL Monroe will have a say in that. Look for another bowl bid this year, not to mention the very real chance of a coaching search in December.

Things segued beautifully at Houston when Kevin Sumlin replaced Art Briles, to the point where it was tough to tell the difference with the on-field results. Sure, the offense improved and the defense regressed, but it was in such balance the Cougars simply spat out an 8-5 season.

Tony Levine was not so fortunate, muddling through a 5-7 debut as Houston began life without Case Keenum. The offense took an understandable hit, but the defense was atrocious. No one expected another 13-1 season, but something in the slightly above average range wasn’t asking too much.

That might be a bit out of reach this year, too. The Cougars didn’t get the friendliest of draws for their first season in the American Athletic Conference. There are trips to Rutgers, Central Florida and Louisville in a 22-day span. A visit from Cincinnati follows. That might stand as one of the most subtle brutal months anyone in the country must contend with.

Houston gave up at least 30 points on eight occasions last season, which can be offset by getting into shootouts. But the defenses of the league’s Big East holdovers were mostly above average, and it will be a bit more difficult for the Cougars to score at will.

So it’s on the defense to regroup. It will do so under its third coordinator in three years, and against probably the testiest schedule than the Cougars have dealt with since the dissolution of the Southwest Conference in the mid-1990s. This is very much the sort of team that could start 5-0 and wind up 6-6.

The June Jones era at Southern Methodist looks like it could turn out to be one of those great test cases on how quickly fan impatience sets in.

The Mustangs have reached four consecutive bowl games, toggling between eight and seven victories in that span. This, of course, followed a quarter-century of misery, whether it was the NCAA-issued death penalty to the often-lousy teams Southern Methodist fielded once its program was revived.

There should be virtually no complaints with Jones’ work (beyond wondering if he’s planning to stick around a while, given his dalliance with Arizona State a couple years ago). And yet you never know when people might become cranky with basically the same results every year.

In truth, another seven or eight wins would mark a fine season for these Mustangs, who don’t have to face Louisville in the sole season the two teams will both be members of the American Athletic Conference but do have to contend with old Southwest Conference rivals Texas A&M, Texas Christian and Texas Tech.

Southern Methodist has chugged along with an average-to-solid defense throughout Jones’ tenure. Assuming that stays true in the move from Conference USA, the Mustangs have a decent shot at a first-division finish in their new 10-team league.

Speaking of impatient schools, it’s time to bring out Exhibit A in what happens when a program without a wealth of resources decides it is tired of going to low-to-mid-tier bowls every season.

That’s what happened at Minnesota in 2006, when it sent Glen Mason packing after seven bowl bids in eight years. No, Mason’s teams weren’t great, but they were generally pretty good by the program’s standards over the last half-century. After he was ousted, the Golden Gophers had three nine-loss seasons in five years.

Last season, Minnesota went 6-7, matching Mason’s final year right down to the loss to Texas Tech by a field goal in a bowl game. The Gophers were much-improved on defense (the offense is another story) and demonstrated progress in coach Jerry Kill’s second season.

Equilibrium is finally reset, and Minnesota is back to playing at its level. That’s no knock on the school or the team, but the Gophers simply do not have the resources to stack up with schools that fill stadiums that are twice as big as their own, unless of course those other schools aren’t efficiently exploiting their advantages. Maryland and Rutgers, next year’s Big Ten arrivals, should take note.

Kill has won at a variety of places, and he’ll do a decent job coaxing bowl bids out of the Gophers. Minnesota has some issues, particularly on offense, but it is quite possible to see another six-win season in Minneapolis this fall.

Minnesota in haiku:

Purdue, Illinois
Float off Gophers’ league schedule;
Don’t catch a break there

Ohio is not a program you would anticipate would land on a current list of schools with at least eight victories a year in four consecutive seasons:

14: Boise State

13: Louisiana State, Oklahoma

6: Oregon

5: Alabama, Nebraska, Oklahoma State

4: Ohio, Stanford, Wisconsin

The Bobcats are easy to overlook, in part because they’ve played one game as a ranked team since posting a perfect regular season in 1968. That game happened to be last year, when Ohio won its first seven games (including the opener at Penn State) before fading to a 9-4 mark.

Injuries had a great deal to do with Ohio’s slide. When healthy, the Bobcats can be a Mid-American Conference contender. When they aren’t, they’ll get blown up by strong conference opponents (like Ball State and Kent State at the end of last season).

There is little question Ohio could muster another eight wins, and probably more, largely because the Bobcats hit the schedule jackpot for both nonconference and MAC games.

Three of Ohio’s out-of-league games are at home, and MAC West heavyweights Northern Illinois, Toledo and Ball State are nowhere to be found barring a conference title game meeting. It might be difficult to fully gauge how good the Bobcats are, but they should enjoy another above-average season.